Jon. John Williams hace some terrific scores, we have to say it, but I agree with you that "Star Wars", "Indiana Jones" or "Superman" have always the same background melody.

Morricone is a real genious to me, so I'm not objetive at all. I have to say this first.

Nevertheless, he certainly is a master in very different music styles. I won't repeat all the "genre" that you already mentionned. Let me just say that he almost "invented" gothic terror movies style (Dario Argento), a terror style that has nothing to do with terror movies like John Carpenter's "The Thing". See for example the cult gothic terror movie by Dario Argento "Quattro mosche di velutto griggio" ("Four flyes on grey velvet").

I'm a great fan of Morricone's 70's decade. He was inspired by all kind of music styles. But I rather prefere the Bossa Nova influence. I think he became a master of the genre, combining Bossa Nova or samba with his particular talent. I recommend you a great movie score: Il Gatto, "The cat", a wonderful dark humour comedy produced by Sergio Leone with Ugo Tognazzi. Morricone's groovy, "bossanovistic" music is amazing.

Of course, Morricone came BEFORE Leone, his music was composed before the film was shot and this shows who realy came first in those Leone's films. Morricone's presence there was similar to God's on Earth, the alpha and the omega...

Shorty,I agree that the 70s was probably Morricone,s best decade,and certainly his most innovative.I,m not that familiar with the Bossa -Nova Morricone music-yes,I,ll have to check some of it out.Sean-Sean,I heard that Morricone didn,t start writing music before film footage was shot untill OUATITW,although there are parts of GBU that are so well choreagraphed to the music that maybe it started before.I hear that on the set of OUATITW Leone played recordings of Morricone,s music to enhance the mood during filming.

What can be realy said about who comes firts?The truth is that Music ( Morricone ) exists in the temporal dimension only, but cinema exists on both Time and Space, I mean the experience of watching a movie occurs in those two dimensions so we can say the cinema has a " sensorial " advantage, as an art, over music, but when a composer arrives ( Morricone ) who is able to reach the same " extasy " with his music than a great director such as Leone with his films you can see that you are dealing with somebody beyond everything. To me there is no doubt, Morricone's superiority exceeds the domain of music, to me, Morricone is the greatest artist of all times, beyond even the supremes " renaissance " artists and painters, beyond the best cinema directors...

I think it was appropreate as I think its Morricone,s most beautiful theme.I also read somewhere.I don.t atall remember where,that during the funeral service Morricone played the main theme from OUATITW on either the organ or the piano.